Throw Back Thursday – Dateline 1972
Billy Blackledge in his Chevron B-8 leads Leslie Ashman in his Lotus Elan at the Jamaica Motor Racing Association’s May 26, 1972 race meet at Vernamfield. Some 10,000 spectators were there to witness the day of racing, with Blackledge winning two races on the day including the Kingston Industrial Garage trophy race.
Legend has it that the Chevron burned to the ground at Vernamfield but the truth is that Blackledge sold the car after the 1973 season at Vernamfield to Richard Melville and Geoffrey DePass of Jamaica who dismantled it and took it to the shop of John Gunn in Miami for rebuilding, never returning to retrieve it. The car, chassis CHDBE87, one of only 44 built and first owned by Roger Heavens who raced the car in the 1970 European Championship Series, was sold to Harry Stevenson then to Charles Allen Hollis Sr. in 1975 who then owned and raced it for 41 years before offering it for sale in 2016.
Photo courtesy of a private collection.
